WORKSHOPS
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
Webinar - Tried By Fire
Thursday, September 24
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
AIA: 1 LU
AICP: CM 1 #9333643
Speaker:
Ron Campbell
Principal Planner/Architect
Oakland County, Michigan
Ron Campbell is a Principal Planner and Preservation Architect for Oakland County Planning and Economic Development. He provides design and technical assistance for Oakland County’s 30 Main Street communities and preservation assistance for more than 90 National Register sites, two National Landmarks and numerous state and local historic resources throughout the 63 units of government. He is a former President of the American Institute of Architects Michigan, served on the Michigan Construction Code Authority and the National Main Street Leadership Board. He currently serves on the MI Barrier Free Design Board, the DDA Board of Davison and the Oakland County Historical Commission. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Michigan Historic Preservation Network.
Speaker:
Alexandria Huff McFarland-Stankovich, AICP
Principal Planner
Oakland County, Michigan Planning & Economic Development
Alex Huff is an AICP certified planner and architectural designer with Main Street Oakland County. She is process-minded and implementation-driven with over a decade of experience working for and alongside Michigan communities. Alex has worked in local government and as a planning consultant. She’s worked on a range of projects from Master Plans and Zoning Ordinances to Campus Master Plans and has covered topics like affordable housing, downtown management and community resilience. With a passion for preservation, community engagement and measurable impacts, Alex loves making policies and tools accessible to community members and unpacking complex issues for technical teams.
A timely and relevant topic that all communities, local government, HDC’s, DDA’s, property and business owners can benefit. It is a matter that any of our communities could face at any moment. Actions that can be taken in pre-disaster planning and the possibilities to expect during post disaster recovery will be explained.
This is the story of three businesses, three historic buildings and three individual owners putting the pieces back together after a devastating fire. Told from the perspective of a Main Street Coordinating Program, the session will provide detailed awareness of what to expect, insight into the many different needs required and lessons learned during the recovery process. Beginning with a brief history of the district and the importance of understanding how history would eventually help in resolving a legal dispute, to the day of the fire and through the Coordinating Program’s response that followed will be analyzed.
Testing the resolve of the owners and the ingenuity of the Main Street program: we will examine the unique challenges faced by each owner with their various levels of experience as well as the Main Street response to the individual needs and circumstances. This session illustrates just how intricately the lives and livelihoods of people are entwined with their Main Street buildings and their businesses, and that as the work unfolds, the original course of action may not always be the final plan. From underinsured, loss of income during an extended period, selecting the right team, navigating financing and new code requirements, to litigation will be presented. Analysis will also include the crucial role that common changes to the infrastructure over time have lessen fire prevention and measures can be taken to reduce the risk, and the steps you can do to help in the crisis recovery efforts.
1) Attendees at this session will examine ways they can prepare for and help mitigate or prevent similar disasters from occurring.
2) Attendees at this session will recognize the issues affecting the businesses/property owners commonly experienced after such a disaster.
3) Attendees at this session will evaluate approaches businesses can do to provide income and preserve customer relationships during recovery and reconstruction.
4) Attendees at this session will comprehend how intricately the lives and the actions that are taken can entwined with other Main Street buildings and businesses.
Home Energy Efficiency Workshop
October 14, 2026
6 - 8 PM
Cornerstone Church
48 Lafayette Ave SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Instructor:
Daniel Schneider, AIA
Senior Project Manager & Preservation Architect
Kingscott Associates
Sponsored by: Grand Rapids Historic Preservation Commission/City Planning Department, Michigan Historic Preservation Network, Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Cornerstone Church, Consumers Energy & Dan Schneider
Come join us for a free educational workshop and learn how to help your older home perform at its best while reducing energy costs and respecting its character and needs.
Contact person: Rhonda Baker, City Planning Department
Email: rbaker@grcity.us
Webinar - Exploring Risk and Uncertainty for Northern Great Lakes Indigenous Maize Horticulture during the Little Ice Age (1300-1850 CE/AD)
Thursday, October 22, 2026
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
Speaker:
William A. Lovis
Emeritus Professor and Curator of Anthropology, Michigan State University (Retired)
William Lovis is an environmental archaeologist who explores relationships between human economic adaptation, mobility, and dynamic late glacial and Holocene environments. His interdisciplinary approach focuses on hunter-gatherers and low-level horticulturalists. He collaborates regularly with biological and earth scientists and employs replicatory experiments and ethnographic analogy to refine archaeological interpretation. Alongside his North American and European research, he contributes to the literature on hunter gatherers, applied theory and analytic method, public policy, heritage management on public lands, and forensic human remains investigations, with numerous books, journal articles, and book chapters to his credit. Among his longstanding goals is to consistently situate Michigan archaeology in national and international narratives and venues. While at MSU Lovis mentored almost thirty MA and PhD students, held multiple elected and appointed positions in professional societies, and has been recognized for his scholarly contributions by numerous organizations. He continues to dabble in archaeological research during his retirement.
The risks and uncertainties of indigenous maize horticulture in the northern Great Lakes region (above ⁓45°N Latitude) are explored across the late Holocene climatic episode known as the Little Ice Age (LIA; ca 1300 to 1850 CE/AD), focusing on the 450-year period prior to ca. 1750. Botanical evidence reveals maize presence in the northern Great Lakes 2500 years ago but is not well represented as macro botanical remains and evident in dietary isotopes until ca. 1000 years ago. The same cannot be said for beans or squash. Various mechanisms for food production and its use, enhancement and distribution are evident by at least ca 1000 years ago in the form of ridged agricultural fields, sophisticated subterranean storage facilities, nixtamalization and enhanced landscape locations for intergroup exchange. Archaeologists have successfully pursued and elucidated these phenomena, but have not regularly evaluated the agricultural risks inherent during a period of substantial cooling that wreaked enormous impact on other locations in the northern hemisphere. LIA temperatures are estimated to have cooled by 1 to 1.5 degrees or even as much as up to 3 degrees Celsius, no doubt reducing growing season length. We are stymied by a lack of comprehensive information on drought and pluvial cycle incidence, duration and intensity. This presentation has no clear conclusion but rather is a thought experiment. The exploratory perspective taken here draws on advances in dendrochronology, fire history research, isotopic analysis, pollen studies, etc. to refine understanding of the potential degree of risk for maize production in these northern domains and its relative consistency or ubiquity.
After attending this session, participants will be able to…
1) Discuss cycles of warmer and cooler than present temperatures over the past 5000 years with an emphasis on the most recent cooler episode known as the Little Ice Age.
2) Explain the potential role of changing regional climate on pre-European Native American agriculture in the northern Great Lakes region.
3) Integrate information from different disciplines to better understand environmental changes and the several complex strategies used by precontact Native Americans to enhance their economic security.
4) Describe the several different kinds of preserved plant data used by archaeologists and paleobotanists to understand precontact Native American agricultural and wild harvesting economies.
5) Identify future directions of inquiry into northern Great Lakes agricultural economies by multidisciplinary partnerships between biological, earth science, and archaeological practitioners.
Webinar - Remixing the City: Historic Preservation, Inclusive Design, and the Practice of Community Repair
Thursday, November 19, 2026
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
AIA: 1 LU
AICP: CM 1, Eq 1 #9331380
Speaker:
Kiana Wenzell
Co-Executive Director, Design Core Detroit
Co-Director, Detroit Month of Design
Kiana Wenzell is an interior designer and creative director with over 17 years’ experience researching, planning, and executing design projects in metropolitan Detroit. She executes large- and small-scale projects at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) and managed local activations in partnership with local and national brands including Gucci, Foot Locker, Kickstarter and Ford Motor Co. Kiana also leads the programing for the Detroit Month of Design, an annual multidisciplinary design festival, that attracted over 50,000 attendees in 2020. Though her work with the festival, she collaborates with designers and partner organizations to create dynamic place-based events that bring cultural experiences to Detroit for Lear Corporation, Rocket Companies, Kickstarter, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Herman Miller, and others. Kiana has a 2004 BS in Interior Design from EMU, and a 2015 MS in Technical and Professional Communications from Lawrence Technological University.
This webinar is a reprise of the keynote address presented at the 2026 MHPN Conference in May, offering attendees another opportunity to experience this timely and impactful presentation.
Kiana Wenzell, Co-Executive Director of Design Core Detroit, explores historic preservation as an undeniably powerful strategy for community repair, recovery, and resilience. She contends that true resilience is more than simply “bouncing back”—it is the capacity of communities to use historic preservation to bend without breaking, to adapt and repair with creativity, grace, and endurance. Through the lens of inclusive design, Wenzell explores how preservation can advance three core dimensions of resilience—social, economic, and environmental. She highlights how Detroit serves as a “Living Laboratory” for these ideas, demonstrating how design and preservation intersect to drive community-led transformation. The lecture will include examples of architectural adaptation and public space renewal, such as the revival of Michigan Central Station into an innovation campus, the transformation of The Congregation church into a thriving neighborhood hub, and projects like the Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, and Dreamtroit, which foster accessibility and connection. Wenzell will also discuss environmental stewardship, showcasing how Detroit organizations are upcycling waste into new materials and reimagining vacant land as spaces for cultural and environmental art. The presentation will highlight community-led design, including how residents have reclaimed the front porch as a platform for storytelling, neighborhood memory, and resistance. Ultimately, Wenzell celebrates preservation’s primacy to Resilience by Design—a philosophy of designing for continuity—where cities thrive by being continually remixed, inclusive, and future-ready. This topic is especially relevant as preservationists and urban practitioners face growing challenges: declining civic engagement, economic disinvestment, social fragmentation, and environmental vulnerability. Wenzell’s keynote proposes an integrated framework that centers repair, recovery, and adaptation as essential preservation strategies. Using Detroit as a model, she illustrates how inclusive design can address these challenges through social, economic, and environmental resilience.
After attending this session, participants will be able to…
1) Demonstrate that historic preservation is a powerful planning strategy for the repair, recovery, and resilience of Michigan’s communities.
2) Discuss the three core dimensions of resilience – social, economic, and environment – and how historic preservation addresses them.
3) Describe specific projects – Michigan Central Station, Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, Dreamtroit – and why they are examples of architectural adaptation and public space renewal.
4) Explain “upcycling waste” for the environmental stewardship of Detroit, and “reimagining” vacant land as space for cultural and environmental art.
5) Articulate that Resilience by Design is a philosophy of designing for continuity where cities thrive by being continually remixed, inclusive, and future-ready through the primacy of historic preservation.
For more information, please call us at 517.371.8080
or e-mail us at Info@mhpn.org